This invention relates to wall forms for poured concrete walls, and more particularly, to connecting hardware for panels coupled together to construct the wall forms.
It is well known in the art to use prefabricated reusable panel units to construct a wall form for a poured concrete wall. The hardware associated with such panels connects the panels to one another to form the wall form.
Typically, each panel has a marginal frame projecting rearwardly from a back face of the panel to include a flange along the spaced side edges of the panel. The flanges are adapted to be positioned in an edge to edge relationship with the flange of an adjacent panel to construct a concrete wall form. Holes in the flanges of the adjacent panels can be aligned to receive therethrough the shank of a pin or a bolt. The bolt or pin may pass through the ends of tie-rods and are held in position commonly by wedges which are driven though a slot in the shank of the bolt or pin. As the wedges are driven in place, the abutting flanges of the adjacent panel units are drawn together. The pins and wedges constitute a simple mechanism for effectively coupling the panels together. Furthermore, the pins and wedges can be removed from the panels during the dismantling of the wall form by knocking out the wedges from the slots and sliding the pins from their holes to release the adjacent panel units.
In the construction of a concrete wall form, a large quantity of hardware is necessary to connect the adjacent panels together and it is customary for the workers performing the construction operation to carry with them a large bucket of the pins and wedges to join the adjacent panels together. During such operations, the disassembly of the wall forms and connected panels can be very time consuming. One procedure required during the disassembly of the wall forms is the removal of the wedges from the pins. Known wedges are quadrangular and tapered with generally straight side edges and a top end which is wider than a bottom end. When secured in place, the bottom, narrow end of the wedge is lodged in abutting relationship or very close to if not in contact with the flange of the panel. Therefore, the worker often finds it difficult to easily access the narrow end of the wedge to dislodge it from the slot in the pin. Further, since the shorter more narrow bottom end of the wedge must be struck for dislodgement, it is even more difficult for the worker to access and disassemble the large number of pin and wedge assemblies in a very tight, confined and inaccessible location.
Furthermore, the wall forms are commonly constructed in excavated areas such as ditches and trenches when preparing the wall form for a poured concrete wall in a residential basement or below ground floor of a commercial building. As such, the work space for constructing the wall form and for the workers to maneuver and manipulate the associated hardware is extremely tight and limited. Therefore, the installation and disassembly of the pins and wedges is even more difficult and the retrieval of any lost hardware is very problematic. The cost of labor and materials, therefore, has increased accordingly.
One prior art solution to some of these problems has been to permanently connect the attachment hardware to the panels. With such devices, each panel includes numerous such mechanisms. Problems frequently arise because the hardware permanently affixed to the panels breaks or requires repair thereby taking that particular panel out of service until it is repaired. Furthermore, due to the addition of the attachment hardware, each panel is significantly heavier placing a much greater burden on the workers for transporting, installing and manipulating the panels when constructing and disassembling the wall form. Moreover, a particular contractor may have an inventory of panels which are not compatible with the panels having permanently affixed hardware thereby requiring the contractor to entirely discard the current supply of the panels and associated hardware in favor of the panels having an attached hardware design. Additionally, the cost for each panel is significantly increased due to the addition of the often complicated and permanently attached hardware.
Therefore, there exists a need in the industry for an attachment mechanism for coupling adjacent panels and constructing a poured concrete wall and disassembly of the wall form which is easily and conveniently accomplished by the workers in the field to avoid the time consuming and difficult task of disassembling the forms without increasing the weight or cost of the required components.